


A Kind of Magic

by BambooCanoe



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: A Wild Baby Appears, Abduction, Aziraphale Sleeps for a Night, Beelzebub has him wrapped around a finger, Brace Thy Hindquarters It Is About To Hit The Fan, Crowley is Paranoid, Declarations Of Love, Family, Gabriel uses pet names, Idiots in Love, Ineffable Dads (Good Omens), Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Light Angst, M/M, New Family, Ragtag Renegades, Scheming, also: Gabriel swears because he's my favorite asshole, asides narrated by God, probably the middle one the tall one, tw: brief mention of crepes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-06-02 09:14:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19438408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BambooCanoe/pseuds/BambooCanoe
Summary: When the love between two supernatural beings of heaven and hell is so strong and pure and6000% concentratedthat it oop– creates a life





	1. Chapter 1

# 🕊 🐍

  


It was Monday. The second day of the rest of their lives. 

  


Aziraphale was humming something under his breath as he waited for the kettle to boil, tipping spoonfuls of cocoa mix into the white winged mug that Crowley thought him ridiculous for owning. Aziraphale could think of a few things populating Crowley’s flat that were _several_ shades more ridiculous, but he allowed Crowley the illusion of superiority, because he, Aziraphale, was the nice one.

The doorbell rang. Which was odd, given that he didn’t have one. But then he also hadn’t had a collection of mint-condition first-edition children’s books until quite recently. Adam was sweet to have restored his bookshop to him at all, the good boy. Aziraphale was glad he’d grown up so far outside the influences of heaven and hell.

“We’re closed!” He called into the shop, then went back to stirring his cocoa free of powdery lumps. The doorbell rang again, more urgently, and then repeatedly, layer upon layer like the fulsome tintinnabulation of swinging, heavy church bells. 

“Oh, _really_.”

Aziraphale cinched his tartan robe tighter and navigated familiar stacks of less familiar books to the front door, ready to tell off whatever prankster thought his button was an amusing one to push. 

Michael stood there on the stoop, wearing an expression that was 100% sugar-free. Aziraphale drew himself up like a threatened cat.

“No. I thought we _agreed_ —“

“Believe me, it gives me no great pleasure to be here, but you’ve rather left us no choice.”

“Excuse —“

“We would all love to stay out of your business, so if you would be so kind as to _not_ manifest it on our doorstep, then, we’d be ever so grateful.” Michael continued, with a pinched smile not so much grateful as it was capable of giving a papercut.

“What are — “

“ _Especially_ something like this.” Michael tsked, holding the basket a little bit louder so that Aziraphale noticed it. “For heaven's _sake_. We know you are both ineffably… gifted, somehow. But please show some _restraint_.”

Michael shoved the basket forward. Aziraphale took it out of reflex, embedded as it was in his solar plexus. 

“Do not put us in this position again, Aziraphale. Do I make myself plain?”

Before he could shape his mouth around a response, Michael had turned sharply towards the street but completely failed to reach the bottom step. Aziraphale looked down at the basket and then, very carefully, he lifted one side of the hinged top.

“O-oh m– g– … Crow _LEY!_ “

  


# 🕊 🐍

  


The power of love is infinitely _more_ than the human mind has the capacity to understand. Humankind has acted in the name of it since it had one, but quite likely thousands of years before that, too. It is a force that surrounds the planet Earth in swirls, pools, pockets and streams, ribbons and rivers and wallows and waves. Love naturally fixes and heals, hurts and kills, inspires and creates. 

  


Love _super_ naturally, as it turns out, can also _materialize_. This was a new development and left quite a few people irritably muttering under their breath while appearing disproportionately interested in a speck of dust on their metaphorical trouser knee. It wasn’t done, it had never been done, why go about thinking it was okay to start now?

  


True, it had never been done, but fears of a repeat episode were unnecessary. The recipe was very specific and it would be next to impossible to reach the same concentrations again. They were ineffable.

  


The recipe reads loosely as follows:

  


> 1 angel (sweet)
> 
> 1 former angel ( ~~salty~~ spicy)
> 
> Put on a low simmer for approximately 6000 years in the flavors of Taboo, then near The End divest of Loyalty To Superiors, enhance with a healthy pinch of Nothing Left To Lose, a heaping spoonful of Do Or Die, and a dash of Survivable Subterfuge; then pour sparingly (caution: high-octane) whilst dining at the Ritz one remarkably liberating Sunday afternoon. Let it breathe.

  


It was the first day of the rest of their lives. 

  


They felt out their new freedom in stages. They didn’t have to worry about eyes and ears — on walls, trees, or ducks — so they followed their lunch with a sociable walk in St. James Park: side by side, then shoulder to shoulder, and then hand in hand. Crowley’s glasses and Aziraphale’s ring winked back at the setting sun and gradually, the sky mimicked the happy color of their cheeks. They walked back to the bookshop while the sky above them revealed stars like trails of cosmic breadcrumbs ... and then, upon the threadbare sofa, behind the bookshelves in the dusty quiet, they invoked an ancient magic. They shared three words in the space between themselves, compressed the space down to nothing, and then sent it exploding in a great ripple around the planet as their energies touched.

  


On the surface plane of existence, there were two whispered confessions and then the rather desperate sound of lips meeting, and deceptively, nothing more. 

  


* * *

  


Forty miles away, in a cottage named for the abundantly flowering bushes that obscured its stonework, several hanging objects meant to go _tingly jingle_ did just that. Anathema looked up and narrowed her eyes.

"Is that... bad?" Newt said from across the table, frozen in the act of forking some beans. Around them the air hummed with a residual warm security, happiness and contentment and a slow smile grew on Anathema's face. 

"That's probably the most beautiful thing to happen in the last six thousand years." She said. 

Newt looked to be a bit left of comprehension. "Ah. Yes. Good." He tried to edge closer but comprehension sidestepped him. "Uh... What was it?"

Anathema's heart felt like a fully recharged battery. "Eat your beans." She said. 

  


* * *

  


A deep rumble shook the moist ceiling free of paint flecks and rusty droplets, spattering the mouldy yellow papers stacked on the bin-speckled desks below. A nearby posted "Please Do Not Lick The Walls" sign loosened, swung morosely by one corner and then dropped, defeated, to the floor. 

Standing wide for stability, Beelzebub and Hastur lifted their heads and received several bracken drips to the face. 

"What wazzz that?" Beelzebub demanded. 

A minion holding a clipboard, his hair worn up like rabbit ears (or perhaps, given the locale, antennae), stepped forward. 

"I believe that's what the humans call a ‘flex’.” He supplied helpfully. 

There was a squeaky grinding noise. It was coming from Hastur’s teeth.

“ _Crowley!_ ”

  


* * *

  


"Michael. Uriel. Sandalphon. Are we all seeing that?"

The archangels gathered at the tall glass windows and squinted over the sterile architecture towards the horizon. 

Something was violently aglow. 

"A fallen star?" Uriel posited.

"A car sale?" Sandalphon guessed. 

The brilliance reflected in Gabriel's purple eyes until he squinted them down to slits. Then it reflected in his pearly teeth. 

"Is it... getting closer?" 

The plate glass window exploded and sent the collected angels tumbling across the white floor. Someone lost an ivory spat in the process. 

The blinding light gradually faded and left them blinking its neon impression from their vision. They followed a long smoky streak on the tile to the offending projectile, lying unharmed and peaceful in its own soft glow. 

For a moment, all they could do was stare. Gabriel underwent a bewildering face journey the equivalent of which was likely known only to those such as David Blaine. 

"Holy _fuck_."

  


# 🕊 🐍

  


Until Sunday night, the apartment above the bookshop had been completely void of beds. Nobody of the ilk to take offense to this ever went up there, except perhaps Crowley. Aziraphale just hadn’t yet opened his eyes to the scintillating luxury of a full night’s sleep, despite it being Crowley’s favorite adopted human habit. It was better than their tendency to run very short fuses, shun and demonize what they didn’t understand, ask the wrong questions or say the wrong things, and cut corners to afford themselves some laziness. Now, that was truly beautiful, Crowley thought, draped as he was like a regency heroine across Aziraphale’s (new) soft and heavily bequilted bed. Humans pursued lazy with a fervor unbefitting the appellation. If they would dedicate half as much brainpower to solving world hunger, or conferring civilly with one another, or at _minimum_ designing a drawer that things never got stuck in, Crowley would have to get up a lot earlier in the morning. 

Crowley dropped his arm over the empty patchwork that, until a short while ago, had contained his angel. He genuinely hoped that having a companion with which to pass the slumbering hours would be the missing piece Aziraphale needed to finally jump on the sleeping bandwagon. Crowley had certainly found it agreeable, even if the angel had spent most of the night reading anyway. One step at a time. He wished Az would hurry up and come back so Crowley could forget the limitations of human anatomy in order to wind around him again.

  


“Crow _LEY!_ ”

  


Aziraphale’s panicked wail rang out from the bookshop below. Crowley went from boneless to battle mode in the blink of an eye, grabbing a small ornamental table from under the window and very nearly tumbling down the book-stacked staircase, entirely prepared to demolish whoever had Aziraphale at Threat Level Critical — but he found no one else in the shop. There was just Aziraphale, looking oddly small and holding a familiar object in his arms. 

Crowley’s panic reared like a cresting wave.

"What’s _that_.” He demanded, pointing with the help of the small ornamental table. The basket that Aziraphale held looked exactly like the one that had contained the Antichrist, just a lighter color. “What’s that where did you _get that._ ”

“I— it— t-the doorbell, a-and Michael was— and I— I don’t—“

“Oh _no no no_ it’s been ONE DAY, not even one day, they cannot _possibly_ be —“

“Crowley, I— I think it’s— s-she’s—“

“Why would they go and involve _us?_ They remember what happened, we’re barely a day past! What is this? A joke? A punishment?”

“ _No,_ Crowley, I don’t know _how,_ but I think she’s _ours._ “ Aziraphale finally managed to tumble out a complete sentence. Crowley lowered the table.

“What d’you mean.”

“Ours! Like _ours!_ ” Aziraphale insisted with a frantic flapping gesture.

The small ornamental table fell to the floor and snapped a leg. 

“That’s literally impossible, Aziraphale, don’t be fully ridiculous.” Crowley said, but there was something in the familiar strain of Aziraphale’s reserved hysteria that recalled the fear of evidence from anything involving the two of them together, and had Crowley second-guessing the words even as they left his mouth. 

"I can _feel_ it." Aziraphale practically whined. "Crowley, look." 

Crowley approached the open basket as someone who wasn't a snake might approach a basket containing one. 

She was lying swaddled in ivory blankets, fussing mildly in protest of the light flooding in. She had a head of perfect, rose-gold gossamer curls, and her tiny mouth was open enough to see that while her tongue _understood_ what a human tongue was meant to look like, it seemed to have gone a bit squiffy in practice. The tip had a gentle cleft, which by some definitions might qualify as a bifurcation. 

Crowley had gone an interesting shade of grey. He watched as Aziraphale lifted the infant out of the basket, then he made an involuntary noise not dissimilar to a drop-kicked goose and pointed to her back. The blankets had slipped and revealed, near her spine, a distinctive birthmark that looked suspiciously like a snake around a sword.

Aziraphale settled her tiny body against himself and then looked up at Crowley with what could only be described as crushing reverence. 

" _Oh_." He said, and reached for Crowley's wrist. Crowley drifted in closer like a toy boat on a string, too overwhelmed to resist.

The moment he touched her, he knew Aziraphale was absolutely, 100% correct in his thinking. The way she resonated with the entirety of his being was like his heart was a cold bulb in his chest, and she closed the circuit. 

He stepped back. 

“Ohh, I _knew_ it was too easy." 

Aziraphale blinked. "What?" 

"The trials weren't the end of it. This is some new kind of punishment.”

“ _Punishment?_ Crowley, she’s a _child_.”

“Yes! And we’ve already done this, haven't we? We tried the whole child-raising lark and you know how that turned out. He’s a _nightmare_.”

Aziraphale shook his head in the way that he did when he thought Crowley was wrong, but sweet for being so. “That was different, dear. That was influence in direct competition, not parenting in joint partnership.”

“Yeah but we _messed him up_ , angel, do you ever think about that?” Crowley was pacing now, agitated. 

“Oh, he’s not the horror you paint him, he’s just a bit… tactless, is all.”

“He is the actual _spawn of Satan_ and he literally wasn’t that.”

"Alright, I’ll grant you we may have meddled rather— rather _fecklessly,_ but it was in response to an imminent threat!”

“And _that’s_ not threatening?” Crowley said, pointing to the baby. 

“Well, no! She didn't arrive with orders to fudge or great plans to thwart, did she? She’s just… here.” He said, and held her a little closer. 

“But the Almighty _let_ this happen. Why, if not to fulfill another blasted capital-p _Plan?_ Why else was this given over to us?"

"We aren't just pawns in some great cosmic chess game."

Crowley swept his arms out to an invisible jury. "Where have _you_ been?"

"What happened to _our side_?" Aziraphale countered, striding closer. "Hasn't it occurred to you that maybe they gave her over because she doesn't _belong_ to Heaven or Hell, she belongs with us?" 

Crowley's eyebrows crinkled. "They don't tend to play the game like that, angel." 

Under their chins, the baby whimpered and snuggled her face against Aziraphale’s robe, her tiny hand flexing to clutch at his lapel. She smacked her mouth, sighed, and then slept on. Aziraphale touched his lips to her downy-soft hair and closed his eyes, rocking her gently. When he looked over at Crowley, the demon's internal conflict was palpable. 

" _How_?" He summed up, in a distressed whisper. 

_I don't know_ was the honest answer, or _your guess is as good as mine,_ for something with more syllables and less to admit, but neither felt right to give. So instead, Aziraphale thought about it. He ran back the past 48 hours like a reel of microfiche, scouring for clues or evidence, running theories and crossing them out, waiting for the proverbial candl– er, lightbulb, to light. 

When it did, it was cautiously dim. 

"What if," he began, and immediately triggered Crowley's left eyebrow, "what if we've just pulled off the greatest chicanery of all time?" 

"How d'you mean."

"Heaven thinks I can stand in hellfire like a warm day, and Hell thinks you can swim in holy water, both things we should never be able to do." The lightbulb began to grow brighter. 

"Right, and we didn't, it was a trick."

"Yes! But they _think_ we did. The powers of Heaven and Hell _believe_ that we can do that now." 

“…That probably isn't the good news you seem to think it is." Crowley said. 

"No, _listen_ — something Michael said... _Maybe_ , the fact that the powers of Heaven and Hell _believe_ we are ineffably powerful somehow, actually _made it so?_ "

Crowley squinted with his whole face. "What, and _she's_ the result of a sudden onset superpower? We manifest _babies_ how does that make sense?“ 

"When you touched her, what did you feel?" 

"Well, oagh, _panic_ , primarily--" 

Aziraphale's eyebrows made it plain that it would be very much appreciated if he could avoid playing silly buggers for the moment. Crowley begrudgingly acquiesced. 

"Love." He mumbled. 

"Not just any love. It's like what we felt last night, isn’t it, when we finally opened the gates and _allowed_ ourselves to feel it, without shame.”

Crowley didn't respond, but the affected bob of his throat said _yes, exactly._

"Yes, you see? I think she's _that_ , Crowley. She's our love. She's every moment from the past 6000 years where we've felt things that we left unsaid, because we were mortified to feel it, terrified to acknowledge something so incongruous to what we were supposed to _be_ : mortal enemies, fated adversaries. _Opposite sides_. The consequences of that sort of insurgence didn't bear thinking about.” Aziraphale said, in the slightly off-center tone of someone who had definitely thought about. “But last night we brought it out. We let it out and, well, it _appears_ it might have been quite, um, _significant_." He punctuated this by moving the baby down into the cradle of his arms, where she stretched like she was considering putting on a good cry, but then reasoned that she should nap on it first. Crowley watched all of it, his lips twisted down on the wobble that was threatening. 

"Am I wrong?" Aziraphale started to say, then looked up and lost the tail end of the question to the brunt of Crowley's face. 

Crowley stepped in and kissed him. 

  


* * *

  


The angel was not, in fact, wrong. 

  


The baby in his arms was a corporeal amalgamation of pure transcendent love, and Crowley and Aziraphale’s innocent moment of _I love you_ had been akin to an atomic bomb going off. Instead of annihilation, however, it fostered creation. 

The ripple screamed silently across the planet, flickering candlelight, jimmying small chimes and bells, setting leaves whispering and blooms shivering, trailing through water and shushing through dust, leaving in its wake the quiet but pervasive feeling that one was a gently warmed clefted fruit. 

In about nine months’ time, hospitals are going to find themselves hard pressed to find more unoccupied bassinets, the peach trend will be spiraling into the annals of Bygone Fads, and a bookshop in Soho specializing in antiquarian and unusual books will be home to an ice cream parlor more widely known for its authentic crepes. 

  


But for now, a kiss, and a baby girl starting to cry, and an angel and a demon realizing that suddenly, there’s an awful lot that needs to be done.

  


  


# 🕊 🐍 

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I hear more GO!dads content? No, just me? Well, can I get a 'wahoo'?
> 
> If you can correctly guess what they name her in the style of an Agnes Nutter prophecy I will personally tweet Michael Sheen a picture of my snatched wig
> 
> I'm leaving it up to the reader as to whether or not the Ineffable Relationship was, is, or will ever be, consummated. I am of the opinion that as supernatural beings, they are not physically equipped to explore such routes because there was no other need for such messy bits anyway, too finicky, and besides they can already reach euphoric highs much more intense without all that extra business.  
> If you don’t agree, great! It’s good to have variety of opinion or it would be very dull and absolutely nothing would be bubbling. Just please don’t be a sour sherbet lemon in the comments.
> 
> I love you!
> 
> P.S. - Michael Sheen, if you're reading this, I'm so glad we got to be on the planet at the same time honey shine on you crazy diamond


	2. Chapter 2

# 🕊 🐍

Constance was having a very strange morning. It should have been just like every other morning, another grinding drag along the wheel of routine, and in many ways it was. So the one way it _wasn’t_ really leapt out like a squirrel before a speeding lorry.

She had been restocking teething rings well past display capacity for the last five minutes. The distended curve of cardboard and plastic was perilously close to shedding some of its mass onto the floor, but she wasn’t watching that.

She was watching _them_.

They were in the nappy aisle like they had popped in from another universe and were still trying to figure out where they were and why. The soft one with the fluffy hair and tartan bowtie carried a list that included so many items it appeared to be threatening to drown him every time he focused on it. The sharp one with the dark sunglasses and tight pants seemed equal parts weighted down by insufferable tedium and strident with opinion.

“This rigamarole is so unnecessary, angel, why are we wasting time when we could get all this with just a— “

Bowtie no less than _pounced_ on Sunglasses’ raising hand, which had been set to snap.

“Really, Crowley, they’re going to have to draw the line somewhere!”

“Oh, come off it, it was just this!” Sunglasses complained, gesturing vaguely to his torso. In her clandestine observation Constance had noted an incongruence in this area. For someone practically built out of guitar strings, the beer belly seemed to fit on like poorly mounted bad taxidermy and caused his leather jacket to hang about like someone who was aware of this but hadn’t quite figured how to bring it up yet.

“ _That_ is the sum of several parts and we are _not_ performing any more frivolous miracles if we can just go to the shops to avoid the attention, is that clear?”

“This is avoiding attention, is it?”

Though they neither of them looked around, Constance became aware of their awareness with the type of creeping chill that might also suggest an egg broken over the head. In front of her, the teething-ring banks burst and dropped several pieces into the aisle at her feet. She made her way trippingly past them to the nappy aisle.

“Can I, er, help you gentlemen find anything?” She said, with the air of one hoping they might collectively pretend there _wasn’t_ metaphorical egg dripping from her hair. Bowtie turned towards her with an expression of deliverance and started to extend the list until Sunglasses dropped a hand over it in veto.

“We’re fine, Constance, thank you.” He said graciously, with a polite smile that measured at least ten degrees warmer than the common courtesy but didn’t feel sticky because of it. He smelled like the impression of cigarettes but with the buzz of cayenne. Bowtie clearly didn’t find this as perplexing as Constance did because he half stepped in front of Sunglasses to intervene.

“We’re _not_ fine I’m afraid we’re a bit, uhm, lost at sea as it were, I’m sure you could help us _save some time_.” He added pointedly, and though Constance couldn’t see Sunglasses’ eyes, the roll was incontestable. It was such a full-bodied gesture, in fact, that his chest shifted with it, and it was then that Constance realized why his belly had come across as so Wrong.

It was a baby. What she had assumed was just his shirt was actually a moby wrap securing the tiny thing against his body, or perhaps the wrap was part of the shirt, she couldn’t tell. She hadn’t seen the little face against the background of his exposed chest until now, but there it was, and she went like warm butter.

“Oooh, so little! How old?”

“Yes! Um, she arrived to us this morning.” Bowtie said distractedly. “All a bit of a— a— whirlwind, really.”

“Cor, always is, I imagine.” Constance said, resisting the urge to reach out and stroke the little one’s cheek. The baby was protected within the personal space of the peppery one and she thought, perhaps not entirely of her own volition, that the gesture would be unwelcome. “What’s she called?”

“Ohg, “What Now”, mostly.” Sunglasses said, and parried whatever look Bowtie threw back at him with a professional-level Innocent Eyebrows maneuver.

“Right, um, haven’t actually gotten that far, I’m afraid.” Bowtie said, and handed the list to Constance. “I’m just so _nervous_ we’ve forgotten something.”

The list was as long as her forearm.

“Uhhhmmm… alright. Let’s get you a trolley.”

* * *

For the second night in a row, the apartment above the bookshop looked different. The new bed now had a small friend, reverentially placed like a shrine before the semi-sheer window curtains across the room. Its tiny occupant was, blessedly, resting her lungs.

On the end of the bed, Crowley's long legs were crossed like a folding table snapped backward and ready to tap out. His iPhone had grown irregularly hot over the last approximate eternity of scrolling.

“Angel. Give me some guidelines to start culling the herd."

“Really—“ Aziraphale disapproved, sitting behind him on the bed.

If Crowley was a crack shot with the _That's Hardly The Worst I've Ever Said_ glance, Aziraphale was a herald of the _You're Lucky I Like You_ chin scrunch.

“Well, something to do with love, I should think." He said.

Crowley rolled his eyes. Aziraphale, gaze already cast elsewhere in contemplation, didn't see.

"What are some of the holy representatives?" The angel continued. "Aphrodite? Eros? Inanna?"

"Ooogh, let's not go down that road."

"Anna is rather lovely, though." Aziraphale mused, glancing towards the crib by the window where their little girl, after hours of screeching protest regarding matters that they were still utter pants at guessing, was napping in hard-won quiet.

Crowley pulled up the search bar on the pastel-coloured webpage and typed in something short. Aziraphale leaned closer to read over his shoulder. They were silent as Crowley’s thumb took them through the alphabetical scroll at a considerate pace, and then just past the ‘K’s Aziraphale reached out to touch one of the linked names on the screen. He set his chin on Crowley’s shoulder, watching the demon read through the name page.

“How about that one?” He asked, soft.

Crowley did what could only be described as a facial shrug, unwilling to risk dislodging the angel from his shoulder.

“It isn’t another one of Shakespeare’s, is it?”

“You were quite clear where you stood on that, darling.”

Crowley muttered something that might have been _he can kiss my froufy paned slops_ and Aziraphale just smiled, hugging him around the waist, because Hamlet was still playing at the Globe theatre today and if that wasn’t romance for you, well, then there’s just no pleasing some people.

“Do you like it?”

“Aahg, your heart’s already set on it, I can hear it.” Crowley said, as if his wasn’t too. He couldn’t let the angel get too big-headed about it.

“I find it very sweet!” Aziraphale defended. “It has celestial overtones and it can shorten nicely in a number of ways. It’s a name that can grow up with her. But only if you agree, of co—”

Though Crowley was still physically in the relaxed loop of his arms, Aziraphale could sense that he was suddenly quite far away. He leaned forward.

“Crowley?”

His gaze didn’t get any closer.

“’S just… this is _happening_ , isn’t it." He said. Aziraphale moved to sit beside him on the end of the bed. "A whole paradigm shift. The world changed, and now the world’s changed.”

“Yes it’s… it’s all quite sudden, isn’t it.”

The graveside tone abraded and Crowley brought himself all the way back in, back down to Earth, back home. Aziraphale wasn’t looking at him, posture unconfident, hands reserved on his lap. Crowley had a flashback to that bench in Tadfield while waiting for a bus. The dance, ever the dance. Conversation like a rotting bridge between them. Advancing but still cautious, waiting for the next plank to snap and set them back another hundred years.

They say never burn a bridge. Clearly they’d never met that one.

Crowley’s touch was warm and dry, gentle on Aziraphale’s wrist. The angel leaned into the press of lips to the side of his face.

“We just never got to be _us_ , first, Angel.” Crowley murmured. Aziraphale’s solemn cracked to let relief and adoration beam through, nuzzling Crowley as their fingers laced together, and that felt much better.

“There will always be time for us.” The angel said, and Crowley buzzed with the energy of love that radiated from him. It wasn’t unpleasant but it prickled like static, raising goosebumps on his skin, and stirred the energy inside of him to respond. Aziraphale kissed the little snake in front of Crowley’s ear, ran his nose softly along his cheek, threaded his fingers into the hair at the nape of Crowley’s neck and met his lips.

Under the window, Lulana woke up with a name fresh for the breaking in, as well as the acute suspicion that something nice was happening without her. She filed a formal complaint in the form of tears.

“This contrarianism she gets from you.” Aziraphale said into Crowley’s mouth. The teeth he felt in response were a tinge too sharp to be human.

“Brandish your sword, principality, it’s time for another wild stab in the dark.” Crowley grinned.

“At least I know how to properly attach a bottle nipple.”

“Ah of course so the _nipple_ takes precedent to any small fires you manage to start.”

“I still don’t know how that happened.” Aziraphale stressed, and got up to tend to their screaming infant. Crowley smiled lazily after him, then went to help anyway because they’d already learned that Lu settled best with the both of them there.

# 🕊 🐍

There were angels circled ‘round the globe like watchful statues.

Footsteps echoed in the stretch of sterile white, faltered, and then approached the scene in a terse staccato.

“What is this, the mannequin challenge?” Gabriel said. “Y’all are being… weird. Stop loitering. Disperse.”

Prim and placid, Michael turned.

“It might interest you to learn that there have been an inordinate number of unauthorized miracles recorded today, all from the same location.”

Gabriel glanced towards the globe. There was a gently pulsating speck of intense light marking the London area.

“He’s really keen with that Fuck You, isn’t he.”

“I don’t think you understand, Gabriel.” Michael said, stepping forward. “We cannot continue to let his actions pass as an example. Aziraphale deliberately defied and obstructed us, proceeded to invoke the _power of creation_ with a _demon_ , and now he is abusing the station somehow still afforded to him by performing meaningless, selfish miracles.”

Gabriel’s shoulders pulled up under his ears in a Big Shrug. “What do you want me to do about it? We already tried to stop him, and _that_ worked out. He’s _kind of_ untouchable.”

“No one’s untouchable.” Michael said, with a pinched smile. Gabriel’s violet eyes flicked towards Uriel, Sandalphon, then back.

“Have you found some sort of loophole?”

“I believe our concerns hold… _Merit_.” Michael said.

Again, the flit of Gabriel’s eyes while he waited for elaboration in the expectant silence following.

“Could you stop wasting my damn time and make your point?”

Michael’s starchy composure broke to allow for a roll of the eyes. “We take it to the Top, Gabriel. Present our concerns regarding the dangerous effect this could have on—“

“No no no.” Gabriel interrupted, waving a hand like a red card in a football match. “No.” He touched Michael’s shoulder, gave a patronizing huff of a laugh and then brought his hands together between them in the manner of all Man about to ‘Splain. “You’re not grasping this. _Something_ protected him in that fire. _Something_ , some _one_ is affording him the powers he is invoking. What if it’s Her? For that matter, how could it _not_ be Her? What if that traitor and his _slutty_ demon boyfriend were right about the Ineffable Plan being separate from the Great one, loathe as I am to entertain such claptrap?”

“To entertain is not to believe—”

“Michael. Sweetheart. Read my goddamn lips. _NO_.” Gabriel said, with exaggerated enunciation. “We tattle on that Mama’s Boy, we could all be as good as charbroiled, mmkay? Not worth it. Eyes on your own work.” He clapped Michael’s shoulder amiably and tossed a winning smile to Uriel and Sandalphon. “Great chat guys.”

As Gabriel stalked away, Michael turned towards the globe again and exchanged a steely glance with Uriel.

The pin of light over London winked back at them.

# 🕊 🐍

Beelzebub’s chipped fingernails drummed on the arm of the chair.

“They were given a child.”

“100 percent. Michael delivered it this morning.”

“A confirmed _child_ we’ve _seen_ the child?”

The minion stepped forward with a grubby smartphone that had a long, jagged crack across the screen. Behind all the smudgy fingerprints and the broken glass, the image shown was still very clearly Crowley with a baby strapped to his chest, perfectly revealed for the shot by the demon’s half-turn in response to that pansy angel, who stood by the car holding several swollen bags of shopping and clearly harassed by the idea of fitting it all in the back of the Bentley.

“Thizz isn’t in the books.” Beelzebub muttered, sweeping out of the chair. The swarm of flies followed. “We have right of dizzclosure, that’zz how it was before, that’zz how it hazz to be! How dare they try to subvert uzz? They’ve got something elzz working already and I _demand_ to know what it izz!”

“They’ve cut all ties since the trials. Mud on everyone’s face, y’know. They aren't real keen on it up there. ’Sreal bright, shiny…” The minion’s voice saw the new thing Beelzebub’s face was doing and took several steps back to hide behind him.

“Give me that phone and get out.”

“Of course your esteemed unholiness.” The minion squeaked, half throwing the phone to Beelzebub and bowing low as he backed away, all the way out into the hall. Beelzebub sneered down at the picture of the two traitors and then gestured it away, flicking an invocation with a terse _thoc_ on the screen and listening to the connection ring through. The line clicked.

 _“Hi sweetie fly, did you miss me that much?”_ Gabriel said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The “froufy paned slops” 5x fast challenge  
> TIL “paned slops” are exactly what you call [ the puffed pants Az and Crow wore to the Globe in the 1500’s](https://www.indiewire.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/3.jpg) and I haven’t yet decided if that's beautiful or not
> 
> Lulana : shining moon or guiding star ⭐️ 
> 
> Just to be clear I 100% fully support one (1) slutty demon boyfriend and one (1) pansy angel in case that wasn't o b v i o u s
> 
> I also didn’t expect Heaven and Hell to feature so prominently in this story but I have so much fun channeling Gabriel’s King Bitch energy that I’m not even mad
> 
> P.P.S-  
> The work may _say_ it's complete, buuuuuut it ain't until I'm dead on this hill


	3. Chapter 3

# 🕊 🐍

Gabriel glanced over his shoulder, leaning casually against the railing of the stairwell. The voice on the phone, to the untrained ear, sounded like a very large and very _angry_ swarm of flies.

" _START TALKING OR I'LL VIZZIT YOU AS A PLAGUE._ " It was saying. Gabriel wasn’t sure this was called for, but he’d have to double check.

"I feel like you think I did something." He said.

" _The BABY, you feathery blight!_ "

"Oh, y— You think that was us?"

“ _We_ saw _your people deliver it! I have a right to know what'zz going on, we—_ “

“Bee, it’s not a damn scheme. That baby was practically _weaponised_ against us, it shot in like a screaming turd on fire and rather _forced the issue_ of our involvement.”

" _Weaponizzed? Are you taking the bloody pizzzz?_ “

“Wish I was.” Gabriel said, paused. “In a sense.” He clarified, and pushed on. “Our ragtag renegades did something they shouldn't be able to do.”

“ _What._ ”

“It's theirs."

"... _Theirzz_." Beelzebub repeated, in a tone that suggested Gabriel better stop with the IQ test or he’d soon need an IV.

"Yeah. Honest to God, _theirs_. Their damn fingerprints, _all_ over it."

" _They don't hold that kind of power._ "

"Tell that to your _bathtub_." Gabriel reminded. "Look, I don’t fucking know _how_ , but the baby’s theirs. It's got a damn birthmark just like a sword and a snake, what more do you need?“

Only the hiss of the open line responded.

"Bee.”

A terse, passing buzz, like an indignant zipper. More silence.

"Beelz."

" _Tadfield Airbase. Now._ “ Beelzebub said, and hung up.

# 🕊 🐍

#### St. James Park, London

##### Three weeks later

They weren’t, by any stretch, here for the ducks today, and the sense of betrayal was palpable.

Aziraphale and Crowley sat on a familiar bench by a familiar pond and watched a familiar world carrying on around them, perhaps occasionally jogging wide to avoid the pram. Crowley, from his familiar state of recline, was rocking it gently back and forth, the heel of his shoe hooked on the wheel bar. Inside, Lulana lay contemplating the vast expanse of universe beyond the cotton-fluff clouds in the blue, blue sky.

A pigeon skittered nearer, interested in surveying the gravel-to-crumb ratio on the ground around Aziraphale’s feet. A few ducks threw it a dark and pitying glance from the water.

“We can’t stay here.” Aziraphale decided. Crowley looked ‘round inquisitively and spotted the pigeon.

“He’s fine, he’s not bothering you.”

“I mean _London_ , Crowley.”

“Oh.” Crowley sat up a bit straighter and the blameless pigeon flew off in a flurry of dusty feathers. “ _Oh_. What’s wrong what’s brought this on?”

“I’ve just… I’ve been thinking.”

“Gotta be careful with that.”

“It’s not that I dislike it here, I don’t.” Aziraphale stressed, twisting his fingers in his lap, “I _love_ my bookshop. I love the parks, the restaurants, the museums, it’s all so... lovely.”

“ _But_...?”

“But I think… I think perhaps it isn't the best place for us to _live_ , as a family.”

Crowley gestured to the park at large, encompassing the many families that were there for a stroll, a picnic, a bike ride, a good crumb-scattering benefiting the local waterfowl.

"Plenty of families do it, look. Place is overrun with families."

"I'm thinking about ties, Crowley." Aziraphale said, and witnessed the demon's eyes flick to the bowtie at his throat. “ _Connections_.”

“Oh they can find us anywhere we go, angel. Won’t ever be free, not really.” Crowley sniffed, crossing his arms as he recommenced lounge position. Lu had started squirming in the motionless pram so Crowley resumed the gentle to and fro, his leg like the patient slog of a lonely pumpjack.

“True. We could stay here, rebels in our stations.” Aziraphale said. “ _Or_ …”

He sat with the maternal air of a nesting owl, waiting for his little idea to hatch. He glanced sideways at Crowley, who blinked back at him.

“New station.” The demon realized, with a lilt like the dawn. “Our terms. Our turf.”

“Our side.”

“Oahg, you bloody _genius_.” Crowley said, crowding in to bury his face against the side of Aziraphale’s neck, littering it with kisses. Lu chortled from the pram like she could feel it, too.

She could. It was just more nebulous.

“Great big world out there, angel.” Crowley was saying just under Aziraphale’s ear. “Where do you wanna go?”

“Well. I thought, the South Downs would be rather lovely.”

Crowley, caught halfway to Aziraphale’s lips, gave a very throaty snort.

He toppled across an empty bench.

Aziraphale snapped his vest straight and went to wheel Lu’s pram to face Due Bookshop on the pathway. Crowley continued to lie bereft across the angel’s vacated seat.

“You’re serious.”

“Your daddy thinks I’m a jester.” Aziraphale informed Lu, leaning in to make a silly face. She burbled back happily.

“Just a bit short-sighted.”

“Perhaps he should grant it due consideration?” Aziraphale suggested to the chortling baby. Crowley rolled his eyes with a gravitas befitting the sun’s daily arc across the sky.

“Nhg, the ocean air.” He said.

“Good for the lungs.” Aziraphale told Lu, tickling her chest.

“It’s all built on _chalk_ , though, innit.”

“Porous and fertile. Great _biiiiig_ national park!” The angel said, demonstrating for Lu with a dramatized spread of his arms. Crowley came right in with the next volley.

“Bloody up to their _eyes_ in sheep, aren't they.”

“I thought I might take up knitting.” Aziraphale said, the smooth forehand return spinning a shiny silver lining that tried to catch him blind. He was ready with a drop shot.

“Great big cliffs to fall off of.” He said, and lobbed with it a Pointed Look.

It sailed right over the angel's head.

“Think of the _view_.” Aziraphale told Lulana dreamily. She complied, gumming at his finger in her polite contemplation.

Crowley thumped his head back onto the bench. _15-love._

“Nothing to _do_.” He grumbled. “[Waoell](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RssnpE9U6IU), ‘less you like, chucking sheep off cliffs.”

Aziraphale finally looked up from their daughter.

“We’ll be building her _world_ , Crowley. Think of it. An ocean down the lane, a forest up the way, all the plants and animals and insects and fossils, fractals and patterns, the circle of life, the cycle of seasons. Wide open landscape, clean air, hardly any roads to scurry into, no crowds to get lost in, less pavement to scrape knees on, just… room to grow.”

Crowley dropped his arm to the side like a stabbed hero, this final Dagger of Logic lodged deep in his sternum.

“Good job you were never a demon.”

“I should say so.”

“Could probably talk bacon into the sky.” Crowley said, and bounced to his feet. “Pop down tomorrow, then?”

Aziraphale smiled like warm cinnamon apples and granted Crowley his reserved kiss, lingering.

“Lovely.”

The ducks watched them go.

Time is a tricky concept, full of cinches and stretches and runs and snags, a fabric eternally chewed up and coughed out by the Great Cosmic Sewing Machine. Humanity has tried for millennia to iron it out and stick pins in, but then an event three years past will again feel like just yesterday and all the pleats and pinches, gathers and gussets will roil and tumble and twist the timeline until it’s a great big knot, or with some practice, a nice macrame plant hanger.

Three weeks had felt like a year and seemed like three days. They were starting to narrow it down to, if not quite a Science, then at least an Art with a minor in Communication. Lulana was pleased with their progress and looked forward to continuing to watch them grow.

Aziraphale took the lead around the final corner to the bookshop, unlocked the front doors and bent to haul the end of the pram over the stair and threshold. He left Crowley to wheel it the rest of the way into the shop and sweep the door shut with his foot, which went off without a hitch. Crowley then locked the wheels and reached down to tickle Lu’s tummy while beyond the bookshelves, the sound of the kettle filling and other small, domestic noises of the angel moving about the kitchenette.

“Luna’s got some sun, haven’t you, _yeah!_ Pink as anything, look at you.” Crowley said, while Lu giggled and squirmed. “D’you think she’ll get freckles?” He called in to Aziraphale. There was an answering thump and a sound like a thin plastic object hitting the floor. Crowley snorted.

“Fighting gravity again?" He said, sauntering in the direction of the kitchenette. "Newton might’ve ruffled some feathers but that doesn’t mean he wasn't—“

The kitchenette was empty. A flame was licking under the kettle and the formula was sitting out, but the bottle was on its side and slowly rolling off the sideboard. As Crowley watched, it hit the floor and coughed up a great cloud of powdered formula. The measuring scoop lay beside it.

"Azira—“

Rough fabric slammed down over his face, abrading his nose and pressing in too tight around his throat. He barely had a chance to grab the arms that held him before there was a short scrape, a slosh and a clang and he folded to the floor in a great heap of limbs, unconscious.

The kettle was replaced on the hob. The flame twisted off.

Crowley's heels dragged across the wooden floorboards in the manner of one _moved_ rather than moving.

The back door banged shut.

At the front of the empty bookshop, still lying in her pram, Lulana kicked her legs and began to wail.

# 🕊 🐍

#### Tadfield Airbase

##### Three weeks ago

The trees were arguing.

The trees themselves were not causing the stink, rather sheltering one, and poorly. They were ratty, reedy trees: the sorts of trees that had spent their formative years on the edge of a long, flat wind tunnel and had either learned to _elasticise_ or suffered from gale-pattern baldness.

“Look, it’s dangerous. For all we know they could discorporate us with a well-aimed sneeze. Where is your sense of self-preservation?” Gabriel was saying.

“Where izz _your_ sense of the natural order of thingzz?” Beelzebub snapped back. “They can’t keep getting away with everything, it might… start something.”

“That we could handle.”

“You really believe they have some sort of special power, don’t you?”

“Sorry, as a firsthand witness, you _don’t_?”

“I am perhapzz more familiar with the conceptzz of deceit and trickery.”

“... Sure. You seem confident.”

Beelzebub’s eyes narrowed. “Among hizz crimezz, Azziraphale pozzessed the body of a human woman, yezz?”

“That wasn’t _impossible_ , just very frowned upon.”

“Demonzz do it all the time.” Beelzebub continued, riding a private train of thought right past where Gabriel stood, irked.

“Well we have different reputations, don’t we.” He said.

Beelzebub wore the face of one trying on a rather tight concept very carefully in case it ripped.

“What if it wazz juzzt… trickery?”

“Come again?”

“What if they… pozzessed… each other.”

“Don’t be fucking stupid. An angel and a demon? They’d both, like, _explode_.”

“But they wouldn’t dizzolve in hellfire or holy water.”

This appeared to hit him in the teeth. Gabriel reluctantly thought about it.

“Ew.” He decided eventually. Beelzebub’s beady eyes glinted like a floodlight off a fly’s wing.

“You’re seeing it now, aren’t you.”

"You put this image in my head, and I, hate you for it.”

“We’ve been played for suckerzz."

Gabriel shook his head. “You’re still jumping to conclusions.”

“You juzzt _agreed_ -”

“It doesn’t explain the baby.”

Beelzebub had to step back to dodge that right hook of a reminder.

“Shit.”

“Look, you’re very headstrong and very clever, it’s cute, maybe even admirable. But _forget about them_. They defected, they don’t want to have anything to do with us, and we’d be quite happy not to have anything to do with them, yes? So let’s start now!”

Beelzebub swarmed forward, poking Gabriel solidly in the soft grey scarf. “They’ve gone unpunished for serious crimezz against Heaven and Hell. Every _second_ of their unchallenged time izz an insult and a threat to _our_ entire infrastructure. If they are not held accountable, or _stopped_ , then what they’ve fractured could crack and shatter, do you _know what that could mean?_ ”

“I feel like you’re overreacting.”

“ _You’ve_ gone soft, and it’zz pathetic.” Beelzebub turned and began to stalk off across the tarmac. Abandoned in the tree line, Gabriel scoffed.

“I am not _soft_.” He said, to no one. “It’s _sense_. Savvy.”

Beelzebub was still walking away. Gabriel shifted his weight to the other foot, shoved his fists into the pockets of his coat, shrugged to an invisible posse. The trees around him exchanged branches.

“You know what, _great._ Go and get yourself killed.” Gabriel called out. Beelzebub just lifted a rude gesture.

“Fat lot of help you’ve been.” Echoed back. Gabriel cursed under his breath. Goddamn death wish, that’s what it must be. Hell was no walk in the park, fine, but to allow _them_ to send you into the Eternal Dark? There were less humiliating ways to g—

Inspiration burst like a flashbulb behind his violet eyes. It took him a second to refocus on his temporal position.

“Beebz! Wait!”

* * *

Progress was happening, and every turn was full of surprises. It was all so deliciously _exciting_.

The spectator paused, and squinted.

Oh.

Well, now.

Where did they find _those_.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey if y’all have any information about where all this is coming from please call 123-4567 I’m desperate  
> This was supposed to be a fun and fluffy family fic what happened WHAT HAPPENED
> 
> Sorry about the sudden Grand Slam of tennis references, felt right at the time, might delete later
> 
> The linked word 'Waoell' was me and is absolutely on purpose [it's a Youtube video of David positively _abusing_ vowels](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RssnpE9U6IU) with a simple word and I've chosen to translate his unique brand of mewling into the very complex and specific collection of letters seen above,, love you David you strange bird ♥


End file.
